Video conferencing from remote locations has become more common. With the development and availability of the Internet and digital cameras, more people are able to interact with others under a variety of circumstances while located at different locations.
Traditionally, a videoconference between two locations has a video camera at each location. Most systems have incorporated pan tilt zoom (PTZ) cameras. In these systems, the PTZ camera can provide a close-up view of an area to a user. In most systems, a viewer from a remote location may control the PTZ camera. However, current PTZ camera video conferencing systems have many disadvantages.
In video conferencing systems having multiple users, remote users may want to control the PTZ camera differently. Past systems have provided a PTZ camera for each remote user in a video conference system. Though this approach provides each user with their own close-up view, providing a separate PTZ camera for each remote user is prohibitively costly. Other systems have provided a single or limited number of PTZ cameras that are locally controlled by a human operator. A local operator may direct the PTZ camera to an area considered important. However, this does not satisfy the needs of remote users who desire different views. Further, the human operator is subject to make human errors and miss important information. Other attempted solutions in video conferencing provide for an automatic control of a PTZ camera. These systems include Bell Core's Auto-Auditorium, Cornell's lecture capturing system, and Microsoft's ICAM system. These systems eliminate the disadvantages of having a human operator control a camera, but don't provide customized video for multiple users.
What is needed is a system for providing video that allows multiple users to choose a personalized camera view, such as that provided by a PTZ camera.